CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM. UT is a science of criticism possible? CHAPTER asked, and usually answered in the II. its widest negative. It cannot well be answered in the affirmative, indeed, so long as criticism is undefined. Criticism is a wide word that, accord- Criticism in ing to late usage, may comprehend almost any sense. stir of thought. It is literally the exercise of judgment, and logicians reduce every act of the mind into an act of judgment. So it comes to pass that there is a criticism of history, of philosophy, of science, of politics and life, as well as of literature and art, which is criticism proper. Sir William Hamilton, who never touched criticism proper, was known throughout Europe as the first critic of his day; and Mr. Matthew Arnold has lately been using the word as a synonym not Essay on only for science, but even for poetry. Homer, Joubert. Does not contain CHAPTER Dante and Shakespeare, are in his view critics. II. Their work is at bottom a criticism of life, and "the aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is in truth nothing but that." It may be convenient sometimes to employ the word thus largely; but there is a danger of our forgetting its more strict application to art. Certainly, in the larger, looser sense of within itself the term, a science of criticism, if at all possible, of a special must resolve itself into something like a science of reason a logic-a science of science. It is needful, therefore, to explain at the outset that there is a narrower sense of the word criticism, and that there is a good reason why it should be specially applied to the criticism of literature and art. the notion science. Criticism strictly so called. The reason is, that whereas the criticism of philosophy, truly speaking, is itself philosophy, and that of science science, and that of history history, the criticism of poetry and art is not poetry and art, but is and to the end of time will remain criticism. Kant called his leading work a critique, and he chose that title because his object was not to propound a philosophical system, but to ascertain the competence of reason to sound the depths of philosophy. This, however, as much belongs to philosophy as sounding the ocean belongs to ocean telegraphy. Locke had already done the same thing. He said, that before attempting to dive into philosophy, it would be wise to inquire whether the human mind II. is able to dive into it, and he would therefore CHAPTER examine into the nature and resources of the thinking faculty. The criticism of the understanding which he thus undertook is Locke's philosophy, just as Kant's critique of reason is the most important part of Kant's philosophy. So in other lines of thought, criticism of philology is a piece of philology, and criticism of history is a contribution to the lore of history. One of the most classical of all histories indeed, that of Julius Cæsar, goes by the name of commentary. But criticism of poetry, it must be Is criticism repeated, is not poetry, and art lore is not art. more. The attempt has, no doubt, again and again been made, to elevate criticism into poetry. Witness the well-known poems of Horace, Vida, Boileau, Pope, and others. But criticism that would be poetry is like the cat that set up for a lady and could not forget the mice. Whatever it may be as criticism, it falls short of art. And therefore it is that the name more especially belongs to all that lore which cannot well get beyond itself the lore of art and literary form. and nothing not science. Now, it must be owned that criticism does not Criticism yet rank as a science, and that, following the yea wonted methods, it seems to have small chance of becoming one. To judge by the names bestowed upon critics, indeed, one might infer that it has no chance at all. Sir Henry Wotton used What the to say, and Bacon deemed the saying valuable thinks of enough to be entered in his book of Apophthegms, criticism. world critics and CHAPTER that they are but brushers of noblemen's clothes; II. Ben Jonson spoke of them as tinkers who make more faults than they mend; Samuel Butler, as the fierce inquisitors of wit, and as butchers who have no right to sit on a jury; Sir Richard Steele, as of all mortals the silliest; Swift, as dogs, rats, wasps, or, at best, the drones of the learned world; Shenstone, as asses which, by gnawing vines, first taught the advantage of pruning them; Matthew Green, as upholsterers and appraisers; Burns, as cut-throat bandits in the path of fame; Washington Irving, as freebooters in the republic of letters; and Sir Walter Scott, humorously reflecting the general sentiment, as caterpillars. If poets and artists may be described as pillars of the house. of fame, critics, wrote Scott, are the caterpillars. Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging, said Ben Jonson; and criticism, says Dryden, is mere hangman's work. It is a malignant deity, says Swift, cradled among the snows of Nova Zembla. Ten censure wrong, says Pope, for one who writes amiss. The critic's livelihood is to find fault, says Thackeray. Non es vitiosus, Zoile, sed vitium, is the summing up of the wittiest of Latin poets: You are not at fault, Gaffer critic, but fault. Thomas Moore has a fable of which the point is that from the moment when young Genius became subject to criticism his glory faded. Wordsworth describes criticism as an inglorious employ The pith of it in Moore's fable. |